1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to ink-jet printers, and more particularly, to an ink-jet printer that is capable of uniformly spreading waste ink, which is discharged from its ink cartridge, in its waste ink collecting box.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an ink-jet printer is a nonimpact printer that forms images by having jets of ink broken up into electrostatically charged drops. According to the input data, the electrostatically charged drops are guided into positions that form images and characters on a paper or other printable medium. As a print head moves across the surface of the paper, it shoots a stream of tiny, electrostatically charged ink drops from an ink cartridge at the page to form the image. A container within the ink-jet printer collects waste ink that is discharged just before a printing process. The hardened ink on the nozzles of the ink cartridge is removed and deposited in the waste ink container.
The collection of ink is not, however, always uniform. The nozzles come in contact with the ink from the waste ink container because the ink, especially black ink, accumulates towards the nozzle in the waste ink container. Inks such as black ink pile up in the waste ink container because it dries into a gel state. The nozzles becomes contaminated or even clogged by the waste ink. The quality of the print is greatly reduced because of the accumulation of the ink in the waste ink container.
The exemplar art of U.S. Pat. No. 5,801,725 for Slidable Wiping and Capping Service Station for-Ink Jet Printer issued to Neese, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,009 for Service Station for Ink-jet Printer issued to Youn, U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,365 for Receptacle for Waste Ink Collection in Ink Jet Recording Apparatus issued to Kakeno, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,094 for Waste Collecting Device of an Ink Jet Printer issued to Iwagami, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,935 for Waste Ink Receiving Cartridge and Ink Recording Apparatus Using said Cartridge issued to Uzita, U.S. Pat. No. 5,953,026 for Ink Jet Printing Apparatus, Method of Disposing Waste Liquids and Apparatus Therefor issued to Yoshino, U.S. Pat. No. 4,965,596 for Ink Jet Recording Apparatus with Waste Ink Distribution Paths to Plural Cartridges issued to Nagoshi, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,306 for Waste Ink Separator for Ink Jet Printer Maintenance System issued to Carlotta disclose waste ink separators in ink-jet printers. I have found that the art does not show an efficient method and apparatus that uniformly spreads ink in a waste ink collecting box of an ink-jet printer.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide to an ink-jet printer that is capable of uniformly spreading waste ink, which is discharged from an ink cartridge, in a waste ink collecting box.
It is another object to improve the servicing of the print head without reducing printing efficiency.
It is still another object to prevent the print head from being contaminated or clogged.
It is yet another object to increase the print quality of an ink-jet printer.
It is another object to increase the life span of an ink-jet cartridge.
In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention provides an ink-jet printer, having a frame, a paper feeder is mounted on one side and on the other side a discharge device is mounted; a carriage that has at least one ink cartridge loaded, the carriage being transversely reciprocated between a printing area and a service area along a guide rod that is horizontally mounted to the frame; a waste ink collecting box for collecting waste ink discharged from the ink cartridge in the service area; and a device for uniformly spreading the waste ink heaped in the waste ink collecting box.
Preferably, the waste ink spreading device may have a waste ink spreader, the waste ink spreader having a hinge portion rotatably mounted to the waste ink collecting box, a spreader arm extended from one side of the hinge portion, the spreader arm spreading heaped waste ink uniformly in the waste ink collecting box, and a spreader head extended from the opposite end of the hinge portion, the spreader head being actuated for rotation of the spreader arm.
Preferably, the waste ink spreading device may further comprise a spring that is secured to the waste ink collecting box and the spreader head of the waste ink spreader at both its ends. Preferably, the spreader head may be actuated by movement of the carriage. In particular, the waste ink spreading device may further have a pusher that is projected from the service area side of the carriage, the pusher actuating the spreader head to rotate the waste ink spreader.